Jacek Czarnik Books and senses
	Public Library in Wałbrzych
	This article was translated thanks to the grant received from the Open Society Institute

Some time ago, I was glancing through the manuscripts written by Ignacy Krasicki. They contained fragments of poems, first drafts of fairy tales, and other notes. I new most of them, therefore I concentrated on the quality of handwriting of this ancient poet. It was an experience, interesting, even emotional. However, the strongest experience came from the touch. I could grasp with my fingers the same pages that he touched. Only this surrogate contact - in spite of two hundred years separating us - evoked in me an emotional shudder.

Touch is a sense of fulfilment, without it, belief is difficult, love is handicapped, and knowledge is incomplete. Books have to be touched. They are meant for the hand as well as eyes and mind. Complete contact with them occurs only when one feels their weight, smoothness or roughness of the binding, elasticity or softness of paper. It is difficult to content oneself with just looking at them through the window of a bookshop or contemplate, enclosed in a bookcase, however masterfully conceived, title printed on the back of a book.

There are not many forms of art in which an artist can consider the effect of his creation on the sense of touch. Writers are fortunate to have at their disposal many possibilities. A book stimulates almost all senses. The eye can behold the beauty of illustrations and decorations. The nose is enticed by the aroma of printers ink. The rustle of foil covering graphic reproductions intrigues the ear, and the whisper of turning pages calms the mind. The experiences connected with taste can, in truth, be only accessed through one's imagination, stimulated by the content of the book. At times, the world conjured by text replaces reality. The forces of imagination cannot be underestimated.

The foremost impression associated with a book is visual. Multiplicity of elements forming the material entity of written and graphic media enforces the necessity of creating a unique "architecture" of printed text format and book, as a whole. This task demands a degree of talent, taste, courage, and thorough specialist knowledge.

Printer's type is the building block of printed text. In choosing a suitable type for a specific manuscript a typographer must observe three cardinal rules: functionality, suitability, and artistic originality. Under functionality comes contrast between the print and the background, visibility of individual letters and punctuation marks, separation between words. Suitability and artistic originality cover relation between the size of letters and page dimensions, choice of font (it should complements the content of a manuscript), and text formatting. All those elements combine to create a harmonious whole, which sharpen the perception of a reader and allow him to absorb the content without difficulty.

Style of a publication can be static and harmonious or dynamic, based on contrast of light and shade effects individual symbols. It may be characterized by geometric regularity of letters creating straight lines and curves or alternatively, be flamboyantly asymmetric as some sensational magazines. Its aesthetic qualities not only make reading a pleasure but can also create a specific "book climate".

All aspects of typographic composition - line spacing, size and proportions of columns, their relation to blank areas, insertion of illustrations, various distinguishing marks and graphic accents, also affect aesthetic appearance of a publication.

However, typographer cannot have an absolute freedom of choice. Limitations imposed by habits and perceptions of readers may prevent him from achieving a total aesthetic effect. Too wide margins can be considered inconvenient, excessive asymmetry may irritate, absence of paragraphs - boring, wide line spacing - distracting, text fragmentation can interrupt the train of thoughts.

Books of high aesthetic quality, achieved in spite of the above-mentioned limitation, are very often regarded as works of art to be displayed rather than read. Disregard for functionality undermines the bond between the world conjured by the text and the format in which it is presented. True sensual satisfaction can be experienced only when a book which, in addition to an effective typography, offers beautiful illustrations and decorations in accord with the content.

Text dictates, if and what illustrations and decorations are appropriate. They supplement text by stimulating imagination, "a picture is worth thousand words". The meaning of printed words becomes clearer, but only when all thee elements amalgamate into a harmonious whole. Without harmony there is confusion, ambiguities set in. Even the most impressive illustration fails to achieve the desired results - if it is out of place. Illustration offer enormous scope for aesthetic expression - exotic dyes, refined graphic techniques, intriguing composition. However, the final aesthetic impact, (compared for example with wood carving by Albrecht Durera, is realized only when it complements printed text and the spirit of the book.

Achievement of the said concord with the book's soul and creation of its image, demands from the illustrator total involvement with its content. The depth of personal experience and understanding was possibly the source of extraordinary harmony and beauty found in the works of medieval masters toiling in monastic libraries. They were totally prepared for that task, intellectually and spiritually. They laboriously decorated holly parchments, creating exquisite designs. It was a prayer and sacrifice to the glory of God. That is why they frequently used gold for writing and painting ornaments. Pages were died purple and each was treated as separate work of art. Bindings were encrusted with precious stones. Hieratic, monumental form harmonized well with sacred text full of worship of God.

Every aspect of graphic art has a potential of influencing human senses and mind. Artists at the turn of XIX and XX century were masters in this field. Their illustrations, vignettes or initials were composed with characteristic for the Secession motifs - i.e. asymmetrical, wavy and intermittent lines, curly long hairs or thorny rose branches, goblets of flowers, sunflowers, used deliberately to create mood. Examples are many, but what comes to mind is our own Josef Mehoffer who in one of his initials designed for Miriam's "Chimera", placed a sleeping woman's head, adorn with long hair, in the inner arch of a letter "S" and provocatively draped her naked body over the outer arch.

The sensual impressions, which accompany one's contact with a book, viewing illustrations, absorbing the content, supplement mainly the moods and emotions evoked by the text. But when skilfully induced, can also help to grasp the contained there ideas and author's intentions and desires.

I would like to recall a known to historians case of Anatol Girs, famous graphic artist, printer and publisher, who requested that a part of his first edition of Auschwitz story be bound in the original striped clothing worn by inmates. Red triangle (representing a political prisoner) adorned the front covers together with letter "P" (Polish) and the identity number of one of the co-authors. Some issues had barbed wire imbedded in the covers. The book contained stories by Janusz Nel Siedlecki, Krystyn Olszewski, and Tadeusz Borowski. It was titled Byliśmy w Oświęcimiu (We were in Oświęcim) The first person narration, ID numbers of the authors and print format gave the stories air of authenticity. All this was conceived to help a reader experience virtual contact with the world described in the tales. It made him a witness - he could say: I have seen and touched the clothes they wore. Incidentally, Anatol Girs had his own copy covered in leather taken from an SS man's coat.

The material elements of a book - materials used for binding, paper with its surface quality, type of printers ink - can complete the harmony of visual impressions, and also stimulate other senses.

Seeking such experiences were sensualists mentioned in modernistic novels, (their attitude and treatment of books described some time ago Janina Wiercinska). They attempted to satisfy their overactive sensuality by re-arranging literary lectures in a specific manner. A book became the object of this re-arrangement. Dorian Gray imported from Paris several copies of well-known Wilde's novel and ordered them to be adorned with covers complementing varying moods.

The hero of Huysmans' story had his favourite poems by Baudelaire printed using: beautiful Bishop's typeface of the old firm Le Clere [...], in a wide format reminiscent of missal format, on Japanese felt paper, spongy, soft like a core of black lilac, and imperceptibly tinted with rose. This edition, consisting of one sample, was covered inside and outside with carefully selected flesh coloured pigskin, spotted with minute points left after depilation, and decorated with black lace design, chosen and cold pressed by certain famous artist.

All who love books felt a fragment of the intensively expressed here desire to extract from a book what potentially exists in all its constituents.

This predisposition is shared by all bibliophiles who search for unusual editions and who would rather than read, delight themselves with their graphic form, quality of print and paper, fondle them, smell them and almost taste them.

Some creators enchanted with the idea of extracting all possible sensory perceptions from a book are not satisfied with just illustrating them and composing typography. They design special fonts, supervise printing or even personally print on a specially prepared - sometimes by themselves - paper, fold, and bind.

This particular attitude created a phenomenon, very popular in the last few decades in the West, especially in England, - tradition of which goes back to the time of Kelmscott Press by William Morris - the so called private presses, or small backroom printing presses where a limited editions of high artistic quality books were hand printed. In Poland, a number of that kind of printing and publishing "institutions" achieved recognition among connoisseurs of beautiful books - in the post war years, a publishing and printing establishment of Samuel Tyszkiewicz in Florence, as well as a Munich branch of "Oficyna Warszawska " founded by Anatol Girs, and in London, "Oficyna Poetow i Malarzy" owned by Krystyna and Czesław Bednarczyk and "Oficyna Wydawnicza" of Stanisław Gilwa.

Of similar type is the Artistic Book Museum run by Jadwiga and Janusz Pawel Tryznow, founded in Lodz in the early 80th. Their objectives were explained clearly in print, which accompanied one of the exhibitions organised by them: Our aim is to create a book, in which pictures and words form an integral whole - an object of art. This objective is realised by surrounding text with artistic forms or simultaneously creating text and picture - both by the same artist. We cannot rule out the possibility of subordinating text to the picture. However we avoid over illustrating. Museum has at its disposal a small printing shop, where - as write Tryznowie - a full cycle of book production is carried out, from conception through design stage, formatting, printing text and graphic reproductions, to assembly, stitching and finally enclosing in covers fitted with additional accessories. We do most of the work ourselves. It should be mentioned here that these publishers-artists produce their own printing paper. Some books are bound in high quality cloth, in the Middle Ages . An accessory mentioned previously may be for example a handkerchief for wiping tears, discreetly placed behind the covers of "X letter from Cardinal Polatuö" by Stephen Themerson. Books produced in this way, by their form alone, provoke non-traditional, multifarious perception of them. There are those who, before they start reading, smell them, fondle the covers an pages, inspect everything very closely - not just illustrations.

Book ceases to be just a media for passing information contained in the text. It is becoming an independent form of art, in which text plays subservient role, complementing the impressions evoked by the form, and is its integral part. Artists creating a masterpiece of this kind exploit all available sensual resources. Some compose acoustic "books" in which apart from the traditional constituents, there are those capable of creating sounds, like salt and sand. Others construct books capable of responding to touch, they reveal the meaning of their content only when they are grasped and manipulated. All those means of stimulating senses are known to modern art, but their application to the traditional cultural "archetype", which is a book, is entirely and intriguingly new.

Creators and lovers of books not always refer to their relationship to the written word in such direct manner as Richard De Bury, who named his bibliophiles "bible" "Of Love of Books...". They, however, give testimony to this "love" by awaiting the sensual fulfilment from it.

[The text was published for the first time in the exhibition catalogue "W poszukiwaniu straconej litery" organized by Centrum Rzeźby Polskiej in Orońsk, published in 1998 in Łódź. Reprint with permission of the author and publisher.]

Translated by Jolanta Wróbel